


Inspirare

by italics_of_uncertainty



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, Blasphemy, Bloodplay, Cannibalism, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Grotesque Imagery, Guilt, Human Castiel, M/M, Non-Human Intercourse, Other, Rape/Non-con Elements, References to Suicide, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Serious Injuries, Sibling Incest, Trueform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 01:21:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/italics_of_uncertainty/pseuds/italics_of_uncertainty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the future, Sam has said yes to Lucifer, the Host has abandoned earth. Lucifer killed Dean in the rose garden months ago, Castiel was the only one to survive, and he turns to his dreams for comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inspirare

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the kinky and blasphemous [Dinocrates](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dinocrates/pseuds/dinocrates)!

Sometimes in his dreams he’s flying. Not with wings, but really properly flying in an airplane. He’s thanking the stewardess as she hands him a napkin and a little plastic cup of tomato juice; it comes in a can that looks like soup! He’s breathing dry recycled air, looking out the window as the world passes by, absently biting the edge of the cup, tasting salt and ice and noticing neither. He can see each and every child that looks up in wonder, standing in fields, calling time on their games, stopped on bicycles with one foot down to keep their balance, watching as he passes by, and the best part is, they cannot see him. It is not him they wonder at, but this magnificent machine made of aluminum and will, careening through the sky like a falling star. He would have liked to have flown on an airplane, once. But this is what he imagines it is like, and it is marvelous.

*** 

When he isn’t dreaming, and he wonders why he never dreamt before, it seems so cruel, to be denied something like this, even though he was the most perfect, most loyal… Oh, Castiel loves to dream, because when he dreams, he doesn’t have to think. He doesn’t have to think, not even when he is dreaming that he is thinking of being asleep, dreaming of wishing he could be dreaming. 

This is a gift, it comes with a price. Sometimes it comes in the shape of memories, and though he tries, he cannot run from the ghosts in his mind. Tonight is worse. The scent of roses fills the room, sweet and soft, tinged with the verdant rot of spring. He hates that smell. It is one of many secrets he carries, a secret is something you share with one other, but this secret would only condemn the one who heard it, and he would rather be thought a coward than have it known. It is the memory of the day Lucifer murdered Dean Winchester. 

There was no God to save Dean that time, and Castiel refuses to wonder what has become of him, if there is even still anything left to become of. When God was god, there was mercy, but it was not Lucifer’s mercy Castiel witnessed that day, no. Lucifer held him close and made him watch as Dean came armed with nothing but audacity and that gun, creeping close in Lucifer’s garden thinking himself unheard. Lucifer made Castiel watch as he slowly, almost tenderly crushed the life out of Dean before snapping his neck. Pinioned there, Castiel was left far beyond the rain of death that fell upon everyone he held dear, and for a little while he almost believed Lucifer had spared him out of love. 

Love is a corrupted word. In the realm of angels, where everything is its ideal, Love is exactly what Is; it exists in the Presence of the Throne in perfect, ineffable form. Here on earth, love… It means too many things to rightly comprehend, much less express without pain. The love he remembers, he remembers almost its perfect form. He does not remember shame in it. Falling’s not a problem, falling brings release… But the love he feels now, it seems a pure alloy of shame, made of nothing but guilt and horror. There is no mistaking now that human devotion is flawed, and ultimately bound for failure. In weaker moments Castiel wishes for a soul, so that even this failure would be Good Enough. That is the problem with having once been Grace made Perfection, there is no room left for Redemption.

Soft, cold lips press against his. Lucifer lays on his chest like a nightmare. Just waiting. Lucifer is patient, he has all the time left in the world. All Castiel has to do is let himself be kissed, and Lucifer will do the rest. He asked once, what Lucifer would do if refused. “Then I’ll have to leave,” Lucifer said, and smiled. “…and one night, I’ll come back.”

Castiel is in the grip of a hurricane, world rushing past him with singular velocity, and it feels inevitable when he finally drags his teeth across his brother’s lips, drawing him into a kiss that washes over both of them like a wave crashing on the shore, and slowly, oh so slowly, Castiel drowns. How far that one act of obeisance goes in wrecking whatever was left of his will. How easy it becomes to forget so many things, forget his guilt, and at the same time remember when Lucifer loved him. Somehow that memory still feels like hope. There is no shelter from hope, which he is never quick enough to crush before it grows in his heart. It fractures his defenses and works into his very quintessence with the same quiet determination of a weed finding its way to the sun. He understands now, all those options he thought incomprehensible. How easy it makes surrendering to what comes next. 

Lucifer’s touch brings the weight of the world crashing down on Castiel, and it knocks the air from his lungs. Lucifer breathes him in, relishing the taste of agony and lies. He is no stranger to the steep cost of disobedience, and in that moment he knows more sympathy for his brother than he cares to. 

It makes him want to wreck something, rend it bit by bit into pieces irreconcilably ruined. He bites down hard on Castiel’s shoulder, tearing skin, teeth digging into muscle. Castiel howls, but Lucifer knows it is only reflex, Castiel feels nothing. Not anymore, not the way he once did. Not that he would care, either way. He twists and feels tendon snap wetly in his mouth as it wrenches free from bone. The scent of blood is thick in the air and brings with it an abyssal hunger, implacable, unknowing, wanting only one thing. Castiel is screaming, and Lucifer will break his brother right down until he is nothing but ache and the despair of faith misplaced. 

Castiel is helpless as a bird with clipped wings, and though he braces against Lucifer, twisting himself into knots with the effort, he is shuddering and keening. He shivers with Hell’s bitter chill, writhing against his brother’s form, against Sam, aching for warmth, even though there is none to be found. Thoughts of Sam always slip through at moments like this, they are the only thing he knows to cling to. He closes his eyes, focuses on the feeling of Sam’s smooth flesh and it is like sunlight breaking through clouds. After all, it is Sam’s body he presses himself against, even though Castiel knows Sam must be far, far away by now. He wraps himself in his thoughts, drifting. 

Lucifer drinks like a man come in from the desert, blood burning his mouth and leaving a thrill of heat in his throat. As compulsion fades he begins to graze almost laconically, nibbles fat from beneath skin, bites off hunks of muscle and gnaws on bone, gorging himself, as if he might get a taste of whatever divine spark still lies hidden within, if only he devours enough. Lucifer’s fingers trace along Castiel’s collarbone, absently scratching ancient sigils in the cold sweat that has broken on his skin, and his heart aches at just how human his brother has become, even in his dreams, ever since the Host left. He caresses him, soothing his cries even as he lets his teeth rasp against torn flesh.

“How can it be love,” Lucifer whispers, “If all it does is corrupt, if it makes you forsake everything?” and Castiel isn’t sure whether he’s speaking of his own love for God, or Castiel’s love for the Winchesters.

He doesn’t want to look up, doesn’t want to look into Sam’s eyes and see his brother there instead, but he does anyway, and Lucifer almost perfectly mimics the way Sam would cock his head, that little half smile, as if he knows Castiel’s mind. For a moment Castiel almost believes he sees Sam in those green eyes, but Lucifer’s mouth is obscene with blood and bits of fat, and as he smiles his teeth are slicked red. No more dreaming of the dead, though Death himself is undone. It’s almost genteel, almost polite, the way Lucifer chews the last bit of gristle he’s ripped from Castiel’s shoulder, the way he drags his thumb across his lip, sucks it clean. 

His world goes dark around the edges as he feels a rough hand between his legs, long fingers wrapping around him. It is something like fear that creeps up from within, but it’s also undeniably right, and Lucifer’s touch feels like everything he’s ever wanted. A confused little moan breaks from his lips, he can’t help himself. He pushes back into that strong grip, he wants his brother to absolve him with suffering and pain, wants to be annihilated in the radiance of his brother’s enduring Judgment. Castiel is no stranger to this world, nor the confusion it brings to those souls trapped in the midst of it, but these unclean, human sensations keep weaseling through, insinuating themselves in his thoughts like vermin, keeping him one handsbreadth removed. Oh, to feel anything at all. He would tear out his own heart with his hands, crack into ribs, rip through viscera and offer it up, just to once more truly know that algid blaze. 

There’s no casting out God, and right now there’s no casting out the Devil either. Ultimately, after so many years, it is Lucifer who has become his guiding star. Lightbringer; with all his Princes of Hell strewn out before him, crying his name as they suffer, wracked and bleeding darkness, nothing but screaming horror in their wake, and Castiel trembles as though he has become one of them, uttering words of submission as that terrible light shines down upon him. He wraps his arms around Lucifer’s neck as best he can, his fingers trace a crown in the shadows above Lucifer’s head. 

Who is the lie, and who is the light? All brilliance and dominion, the immaculate reflection of glory incarnate, exaltation itself; the head of a gryphon Castiel’s favorite of all his brother’s faces, beautiful and dangerous, with eyes flashing green-gold and strange, screeching in its peculiar voice. Surrounded by wings upon wings of every description, black and white and so many colors he could never see with these human eyes, a thing made real by the spark of the divine. Countless mouths filled with sharp teeth, all roaring, all shrieking, all crying and calling out the True Names of the Lord. He remembers the unceasing clamor, the uproar of praise, and he can almost feel wings wrapping around his vessel. Wings made of pure starlight, cradling him like a child, feathers and claws caressing him. Wings buffeting him and leaving bruises on vulnerable skin, breaking him back into the shape he once knew. He has a kiss for every one of Lucifer’s mouths, a kiss for every Name they cry, and those Names become a benediction for Castiel’s desire, they fill his head and become louder and louder, even though he can no longer hear them. 

Grace seeps into the breach and fills him with brilliance even as he crumbles away beneath the immediacy of its communion. Power sizzles between their skin as Lucifer breathes into him, and for just a moment, Castiel is rendered whole, nothing but holy fire and perfect adoration. There is no flesh to separate them, no space between, no otherness, and he surges within Lucifer from every angle, streaming into open mouths, pouring into eyes, prising between inconceivable angles into inconceivable aspects. Castiel washes through and beyond him and into nothingness itself. Where Lucifer has only ever been the perfect mirror of rapture, he is immersed and saturated with it. He cracks like lightning, shrieking in a voice that shatters worlds.

Castiel returns to consciousness with all the unforgiving momentum of a fall from a great height, and suddenly everything is relentless. He’s trying to make sense of what he’s seeing; the shadow his brother casts against the wall — not human and not quite angelic either — and on some level he knows that he is orgasming. Suddenly he’s doubled over coughing, throat rasped raw as he’s gasping for breath, ejaculate spilling warm and wet on his hands and legs. Too much and not enough is real, and he can’t find his bearings or catch the truth of it.

He feels a hand twist in his hair. Lucifer wrenches his head back and Castiel sees no gryphon, but Sam Winchester’s face, still perfectly beautiful, but seeming now the very ideal of evil incarnate, caustic and insane. Lucifer bares his teeth, and Castiel sees everything humanity has learned to dread, that nighttime terror made flesh. There is no light in those bright green eyes, nothing but hate and something Castiel could never place. 

There are hard gouges threaded across Castiel’s chest and blood already drying beneath his fingernails. His entire arm is shot through with pain. Castiel is staring hard at his hand, staring at nothing and everything at once, like a man with no mind. Lucifer grabs Castiel’s wrist and wrenches it behind his back, forces his body into a bow. It is excruciating, and Castiel whines, shifting, trying to find his balance. He’s looking around desperately for something, anything but pain to focus on, but Lucifer grabs his chin and holds tight, as he leans close, saying, “Look at me.”

Lucifer laughs and Castiel feels it crawl along his skin like some vulgar creeping thing. It makes him shudder with revulsion and desire. “I can do that too,” Lucifer purrs, smiling, “You want to fuck, little brother? Let’s fuck.”

Castiel wants nothing more than to fuck, to take what is given him, to give what is taken from him, to be devoured. He bites down hard on Lucifer’s lip, teeth cutting through skin, and swallows a mouthful of Lucifer’s blood. Blasphemy is on his lips, and even as this black eucharist fills his mouth it leaves the stains of its passing behind. It is unlike anything he has ever experienced and he relishes it, licking his lips reverently in a twisted mockery of theophagy. Lucifer forces his jaw open, sucks at his tongue, licks the blood from his mouth even as his lip continues to bleed, smearing red across Castiel’s face, marking him a sinner for all to see. Castiel loathes himself so deeply in that moment that he almost prays to a god who has abandoned him for forgiveness.

Lucifer drags his hand from Castiel’s mouth, along his jaw, down his throat, digging into the wounds raked across his chest, scratching new lines into the patterns there, and Castiel arches a little further, and in doing so presses himself against Lucifer’s stomach, besmirching perfect skin.

Without letting go of his wrist, Lucifer slides down between Castiel’s legs, and takes him in his mouth, suckling with unexpected tenderness. The tongue of the Father of Lies, Speaker of the Most Terrible Truth, soft and cold against his flesh, so unspeakably wrong, he wants it so much it rends a schism in his very essence. He twists hard, willing to tear his body apart as well, but Lucifer has always been stronger than him, even before Castiel grew so weak and Lucifer so strong, and Lucifer wants him to remember it. Just one hand on Castiel’s chest, pushing him down, Lucifer’s grip still iron on his wrist, and bones crack as Castiel’s arm finally snaps free of the socket with a soft squelch of ripping muscle. The wrenching sensation of such pleasure, such horror, mixed with searing pain is like electricity sparking up through his spine, and Castiel lets out a moan like he’s dying. 

The sound sets a fire somewhere within Lucifer, and he growls, grazing teeth along sensitive skin as he moves to kiss his brother. He lets go of Castiel’s arm and slowly, almost lovingly pushes Castiel’s legs apart. Lucifer drags his hand through the semen now sticky on Castiel’s thighs, and slicks himself with it, glistening white and vile, mingling with Lucifer’s fluids, clinging in sticky threads to his fingers. His grip is still strong on Castiel’s thigh, a silent reminder that Lucifer will brook no dissent. Castiel’s body betrays him at the sight of it, he shudders with barely repressed desire, but he turns away, shuts his eyes tight.

Drawing up every last vestige of will, Castiel whispers, “No.” 

“Why must you fight me at every turn?” Lucifer grabs Castiel by the shoulders, shaking him like a child’s doll, “Who were you to try to save the world? Why couldn’t you just do what you were told!”

Lucifer flings him bodily to the floor, and Castiel doesn’t even have time to throw his hand up. He lands in a heap on the rough floor, head hitting with a wet smack, and the world is nothing but starlight for a moment as he hears Lucifer, almost as if from a great distance, shout, “Why couldn’t you believe, why couldn’t you just have faith!” 

His body is singing with the shock off it, and he’s trying to sit up, trying to shake off the way the world has gone all muddled. It doesn’t matter now, though. Lucifer’s weight is upon him, and he makes a soft, angry noise as he settles between Castiel’s legs, hardness pressing there like a threat. It is a threat, a promise, too. “You want revelation?” Lucifer whispers, breath cold against Castiel’s neck, “You want absolution?”

Castiel draws a deep breath, eyes closing, as he remembers that reverential ecstasy, and Lucifer thrusts deep within him. He feels as if he is transfixed, in truth he is. Lucifer has speared him through as the soldier did the suffering Christ, and he moans, deep and low at the thought, arching, offering himself to Lucifer, his most cherished tormentor, his new messiah. Lucifer wraps his arm beneath Castiel’s hips, positioning him just so, and thrusts deeper. 

It’s ritual, it’s salvation, the way Lucifer moves, and Castiel yields as lamb to knife. Serene, he gives himself over willingly even as Lucifer splits him open, takes him apart deft and swift. Castiel almost smells the smoke of braziers, hears the sizzle as the offal of his existence burns, an offering that cleanses him of his sins as it swirls about him and is whisked away to by great winds. It’s like God is in the room, and he almost is, here in the shape of a man; first amongst all the angels, his most awesome failure and most perfect creation made one. Castiel begins to pray. 

It starts in his heart and rushes past his mouth straight to the heavens, coming faster than he can speak in a torrent of pure praise. Half-formed words tumble from his lips, fragments of litanies and old, old benedictions, whispered, not dared spoken, in languages more ancient than Enochian, a twisted, garbled wreck of supplication and worship. The words are beyond the realm of men, beyond the domain of angels, and they cut Lucifer to the core even as they sing to the Grace he never lost. Lucifer hears himself speaking and his voice is filled with anguish, “I always loved you! I loved you absolutely!” he cries, and once again Castiel can only watch; this is not his communion. “I would have done anything, anything for you!” Lucifer’s voice cracks, and Castiel sees tears streaming down his oldest brother’s face. “Anything but that! Anything!” 

Castiel remembers when he pulled Dean from Hell, how he pieced him back together body and soul, and then left him buried six feet beneath hard, unplowed ground. All so he could exult in the suffering of a righteous man, watch him fight for his freedom, and he knows why God asked the impossible of Lucifer. 

“Why. Couldn’t. You. Just. Love. Me!” Every word is wrenched from behind clenched teeth. Lucifer has bowed his head, and he shakes with the force of his sobs, but he has not ceased in his communion with Castiel, either. His hands trace the shape of Castiel, touching everywhere, following the path of muscles, flitting between old scars and fresh wounds, until they finally come to rest where they have always meant to, wrapped around Castiel’s throat. Lucifer only ever wanted to love God, and that was dangerous enough, but Castiel wanted to be god, and he knows he deserves absolutely everything that has come to pass. This is how it always had to end, and he is grateful.

Lucifer feels Castiel’s fingers scrabbling for purchase, prying at his hands, and he notices that he has taken hold of Castiel’s throat, and is slowly breaking the life from him. He wants to stop, but for some reason, he cannot. It is the beneficent way Castiel gazes at him that keeps him from relenting. This feels like a blessing, and it has been so very long since Lucifer has been blessed. It takes time, Lucifer will not rush, and Castiel’s body fights, but soon enough it is finished. The body twitches violently one last time, which feels magnificent, and Lucifer thrusts deep and arches back with a gasp, trembling stock still against his little brother, watching as his eyes slowly go blank. 

It is several minutes before Lucifer feels as if he might finally let go. He looks at his brother’s broken vessel and feels a strange mix of scorn and revulsion, it is unspeakably wrong for an angel to die like this; with no circumstance. No glory. He gathers Castiel up in his arms and there is nothing awesome or dreadful left at all. Nothing but meat, nothing even worth mourning. Castiel’s body is so light, the weight of his loss so heavy, Lucifer cannot bear it. 

But it was not God who raised Lazarus from the dead. 

*** 

Once, in a moment of despair what seems like ages ago, Castiel told Dean Winchester that freedom was just a length of rope, God wanted them all to hang themselves. God may be gone, but the laws of the universe still hold true, and he knows now the ultimate, inescapable price of freedom. Forgiveness does not exist.

He grips the revolver tightly, one finger resting on the trigger, and presses the barrel hard against his chin. His heart is heavy, his pockets full of stones. Slowly, unthinking, he lets his hand slip between his legs, reaching for the last vestige of what seems like life. One day soon, as he gasps and shudders, arching against that all too brief memory of nothingness so total there is not even darkness, his hand will twitch perfectly, and the gun will fire.


End file.
